The Lawyer Who Went Through The Eye Of A Needle

By Wang Kai

In China, I had some exposure to the Bible and Christianity. At that time I believed that religion was for the spiritually weak; those who were serious about searching for the truth would concern themselves more with philosophical issues. For this reason, whenever I ran into problems I would rely on my own self-confidence and tough personality. Giving in was not an option.

After I came to America, I was still inwardly refusing to accept God, but my experiences as a law school student completely broke down this stubborn God-rejecting heart of mine.

Someone once jokingly said to me, "It is harder for a lawyer to go to Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, because all lawyers are false witnesses and all lawyers lie." This statement really shattered my illusions.

In summer of 1997, I found a summer intern job at a well-known law office. Most of the twelve lawyers in the office came from the top ten law schools in the entire country. I was the only summer intern there and I was also the only freshman intern they had ever hired. You can imagine the pressure I was under. After one month a second intern was hired. The new intern had already completed three years of study in law school and was on his way to the graduate program of the top-ranked University of New York. I was amazed at his sharp thinking and sophisticated legal writing ability. Often he would take over a very complicated case and come up with the right solution in no time.

What impressed me the most was that, although we could well have been rivals competing with one another, he assisted me in various ways. Although there were strict deadlines for all of our assigned tasks, whenever I asked for his help he would put aside what he was doing and help me work things out. From the second day after he came on board, I never had to take the bus home because he always gave me a ride in his shabby car. For projects that were assigned to both of us, he would always put my name on the case, no matter how little I had contributed. All of these actions were inexplicable to me; I had just completed my first year in law school where competitiveness was the norm and it would be quite out of ordinary for somebody to offer to help you. So I was a little skeptical about him.

But my skepticism did not last long. At 5:30pm one Friday afternoon, as I was making plans for a nice restful weekend, our boss gave us a new assignment: we were to submit our report by Monday morning. Needless to say, all my beautiful plans would come to nothing. We would have to spend the weekend at the office.

On the Monday morning, we submitted our 10-page report on time. Our boss had asked us to do a verbal report followed by a cross-examination by him. The assignment was to analyze whether there were legal loopholes that would allow one of our clients to avoid the legal consequences of breaking a contract. Our conclusion was that, while it was technically possible for the client to avoid legal consequences, in the light of various circumstances we would recommend him to refrain from this course of action because it was too risky. This conclusion was obviously not what our boss had wanted to hear. He launched an attack on the poor summer intern, cross-examining him with a barrage of questions until he could take no more. But he still defended himself in a low voice saying, "I still don't think this is the right thing to do." How dare he said such a thing! Our boss was one of the best attorneys in America in the real estates field, and he was also one of the most experienced and respected attorneys in the state of Hawaii. How could a mere summer intern challenge his boss? As I expected, our boss jumped all over him: "I never hire a lawyer for whom justice is the only consideration." Fortunately the case had a happy ending because the boss was finally convinced by the detailed analysis and accurate application of laws in our report. He eventually recommended that the client abandon the plan.

I believe that our boss, in spite of his special experience and temperament, was impressed by the firm stand of the young intern. That day the intern told me that he was a Christian. He firmly believed that the Bible was the absolute truth. And this was how God revealed His almighty power to me. I realized that a Christian lawyer was indeed able to become a lawyer of both strong professional skills and high moral standards.

More importantly, through this incident God removed my confusion about how to deal with dilemmas between my profession and my personal beliefs. The answer to the dilemma was to hold fast to the moral standards and to win people over by sheer professionalism.

This article was provided for by a Chinese church in Hawaii.